


Hand Wash, Dry Gently

by Kedreeva



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Accidental Drug Use, Bathing/Washing, Confessions, First Kiss, Gentle Derek, Gentle Kissing, M/M, sterek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-27
Updated: 2017-07-27
Packaged: 2018-12-07 12:14:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11623317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kedreeva/pseuds/Kedreeva
Summary: Stiles get doused in the blood of a supernatural creature. It has... some side effects.





	Hand Wash, Dry Gently

 

 

 

 

            "Are you going to get in?” Stiles asked, peeling out of his last shirt, his words a little slurry around the edges. “In a- a- a-” He paused, trying rather unsuccessfully to shake his hand free of his sleeve. He started laughing uncontrollably and collapsed to the floor to work on his shoes. “The water, are you?”

            “No,” Derek groused, pointedly not looking when Stiles flopped onto his back and began to shimmy out of his soaked pants. Black slime coated almost every square inch of the floor. “This is your bath, not mine.”

            “Mine,” Stiles echoed, now just lying on the floor in a puddle of black, his pale skin coated head to foot in the gunk. “This is not my house.”

            “Yes,” Derek agreed, as patiently as he could, checking the water’s temperature before turning off the tap. It had to be extra hot to affect the stuff. “This is the clinic.”

            Deaton had explained that even minimal contact with the ichorous substance gave a contact high. Stiles had been practically drenched in the stuff when they had killed it. Luckily it was not deadly or even toxic- which was the problem. Someone had been keeping the creature as a pet, drawing out the fluid and selling it, and it had escaped three days ago to wreak havoc.

            Very, very unfortunately, Derek had drawn the short straw for ensuring Stiles got cleaned up and came down from the high safely. Isaac, Boyd, and Erica were taking care of disposal of the body while Scott and Allison swung by Allison’s house to return weapons and report to her father. Deaton had been kind enough - or perhaps had enough self preservation - to give Derek the key to the clinic so he could get Stiles washed up away from his father’s questions.

            “Come on,” Derek said gently, slipping from the edge of the tub to crouch at Stiles’ side. It was, he reflected, a very good thing that werewolves were not susceptible to the substance’s effects. “You gotta get cleaned up.” The effects wouldn’t wear off until every drop of the ichor was gone.

            Stiles lifted his head, looking all the way down his lean form. “Oh, no, no that’s too far,” he told Derek, head falling back with an audible clunk he was probably going to feel in a few hours. “Wow, this is the best floor ever. Do you think I could take it home with me?”

            “No,” Derek said with a sigh. Looked like this was going to have to be the hard way. He shifted, kneeling beside Stiles, and grabbed at his wrists to haul him up.

            Despite that they slipped and slid a bit, Derek managed to get a very naked Stiles upright and across the three feet to the tub. For a second Stiles stood very still, holding tightly onto the edge of it like he was going to resist going in. Then he tipped forward and faceplanted directly into the basin so quickly Derek had to scramble to keep him from drowning.

            “Hoooooo!!!!” Stiles shouted the second his mouth was above the surface, water sluicing away the ichor clinging to his skin. “It’s hot, Derek! This is  _really hot_ , why is it so  _hot_? Oh my god, I’m  _melting_!” He started grabbing at the black liquid coming off his skin.

            Closing his eyes, Derek counted to three. Then five. Then ten, for good measure, and when he opened them again, Stiles had fallen very, very still and was staring wide eyed into the middle distance. It was not exactly an improvement, but at least he’d stopped thrashing, slopping water and ichor all over the floor and flinging it onto the walls and- and was that- on the  _ceiling_?

            “Stiles, how did you- you know what, nevermind,” Derek grumbled, reaching for the spray nozzle.

            This setup was supposed to be for cleaning dogs, but it would work just as well for ornery, tripping humans. He began to run the spray over Stiles’ hair, watching the black give way to brown. When the tub had filled completely, Derek pulled the plug and let it drain. Diluted like this with water, it wouldn’t hurt the general populace; at worst, they’d all have a really good day soon.

            Stiles’ eyes slid closed, and he relaxed into the gentle touches Derek used to turn him this way and that, to get at the last of the ichor still clinging to strange places like inside of his ears and between his fingers and- well, at least Stiles was unlikely to remember any of this very well tomorrow.

            By the time he had gotten the last of it, Stiles had turned to putty in his hands, making a soft, pleasant humming noise that might have been purring on a cat. Derek swallowed hard, trying to keep it together. He still needed to get Stiles someplace to wait out the high, and get this place cleaned up so no one else would be affected.

            Difficult to think of anything beyond the way Stiles pressed himself into Derek’s touches. “Feels good,” Stiles murmured, unwilling or unable to keep his eyes open. “You should touch me more.”

            “Tomorrow,” Derek mumbled back, prodding Stiles to his feet. The floor was still covered in ichor, so Derek just leaned over and scooped a completely unresisting Stiles into his arms. Immediately, Stiles looped his own arms around Derek’s neck and burrowed his nose against Derek’s shoulder. “If you still want me to touch you tomorrow, I will.”

            “Okay,” Stiles agreed muzzily.

            He wouldn’t remember. No one else had. Still…

            He allowed himself a small smile, and a measure of hope. Stiles had never been one for following the rules, after all.

 

* * *

 

            Stiles stirred to the smell of breakfast heavy in the air, and knew almost immediately that he was not in his own room. He wasn’t even in an actual room, he was under too many blankets on Derek’s ridiculous bed, his face mashed into a pillow that was- not his own. He startled upright very suddenly, heart racing for a second against the huge blank in his memory.

            “Hey, it’s okay,” came a gentle voice from behind him, and he scrabbled to turn around to see. Derek stood a couple of yards away, his hands both held up in a calming gesture. “It’s okay,” he repeated. “You’re safe. You got slimed by that thing.”

            Stiles took a few choppy breaths, scraping at his memory. They had gone to fight the monster, found it at a park, up a tree. He remembered walking over to look up. He remembered Allison’s arrow, and seeing the thing pop like a balloon, and then-

            And then nothing.

            “I don’t remember,” he croaked, throat scratchy.

            “I know,” Derek soothed, stepping closer and watching for a reaction. “Does anything feel weird? Hurt? Headache or anything?”

            “No,” Stiles said, watching Derek right back as he took another step forward, almost to the edge of the bed. Stiles was suddenly very aware that although he was dressed, the clothing did not belong to him. “What happened?”

            “Nothing,” Derek said, and Stiles didn’t have to be a werewolf to know  _that_ was a lie. “Nothing  _important_ ,” Derek amended. “The others ditched you with me to get cleaned up at the clinic. You were… really high. And loud.”

            “Oh,” Stiles said, not really sure what to make of that. “And I’m in scrubs because…”

            Stiles watched in fascination as Derek’s cheeks and ears pinked, the color speckling at the lines of his neck. “You were completely covered in that stuff. Your clothes were ruined, and you needed a- a bath.”

            “And you-”

            For just a split second, Stiles thought he remembered the sensation of warm, broad hands smoothing over his skin, slicking water from his hair, tipping his jaw, brushing along his-

            “Yeah,” Derek interrupted, tense and hesitant. “You went catatonic after getting in the water. I thought if I just got it rinsed off…”

            The low, contented noise Stiles had made with Derek practically petting him.

            “Yeah,” Stiles agreed, voice a little shaky. Maybe more than just his voice.

            The beat of Derek’s heart in his ear as he carried him out of the back room, carried him to the passenger seat of his camaro, carried him upstairs to the loft.

            “Thank you,” was what came out of his mouth instead of all the questions he had. “It, uh… it worked. I’m… me, again. I think.”

            The warmth of Derek’s body, inches away from his as he drifted in and out of restless sleep, the rasp of his soft breathing, the knowledge that he was safe.

_Tomorrow_.

            Stiles shivered a little, looking up to meet Derek’s eyes as if he could find an answer there.

            “You sound like you,” Derek told him, leaning on his leg against the side of the bed.

_If you still want me to touch you tomorrow, I will._

            The ichor had all been washed away by then. He remembered those words. He remembered the patience in Derek’s voice as he said them, and the resignation. He remembered his last, desperate thoughts, the ones unable to claw past his lips, being how much he wanted to reassure Derek.

            “I am,” he said, as firmly as he could, and it seemed to work, because Derek smiled softly. “I’m back to normal.”

            “That’s relative,” Derek said with a small smirk, and it felt so familiar and alien, the way Derek teased him. “I made breakfast, if you’re hungry.”

            Derek turned away again, toward the kitchen, and Stiles moved like he’d been pulled on puppet strings, sitting on the edge of the bed before he registered the decision to follow at all.

            “Derek,” Stiles called.

            Derek froze, tension written in every line of his body, and Stiles could barely hear anything over the thundering of his heart. This was happening. Derek didn’t answer, but he didn’t move away, either.

            “I- I do remember something,” Stiles admitted hesitantly. “I remember that I… I asked you… to touch me. More.”

            “You weren’t in your right mind,” Derek told him, an easy out. Stiles might have taken it as a rejection if it hadn’t sounded like it broke Derek to say.

            “I am, now.” This had to have been the gentlest argument they’d ever had. Derek turned to look, and Stiles looked right back, unwavering. “And it’s tomorrow.”

            “Stiles…” Soft, barely there. Another argument.

            “Please,” Stiles asked. “You said you would, if I still wanted you to. I do.”

            Derek stared at him for a long few moments, looking torn, before finally taking a step forward, and another, and another, and then he was standing in right in front of Stiles again, their knees just inches apart. Stiles could feel his own heart thrumming in his fingertips, in his throat, in his lips, and he was sure Derek could hear it even louder.

            “Please,” Stiles repeated. “Touch me.”

            With a small sound of surrender, Derek did, palms warm on Stiles’ jaw, leaning down to rest his forehead against Stiles’. They stayed like that for one breath, two, and then Stiles shifted just slightly, just enough to tip his chin up, just enough to touch his lips to Derek’s. Eyes closed, breath stalled, he stayed like that a moment longer, Derek’s thumb brushing over his cheek.

            Then he pulled back a little, opening his eyes. “Okay,” he breathed.

            “Okay?” Derek echoed uncertainly.

            “Yeah,” Stiles said, putting himself very much into Derek’s space as he got to his feet. “We’re going to have breakfast now.”

            “We are?” Derek asked, sounding confused and a little hurt now.

            “Yeah,” Stiles said again, grabbing Derek’s shirt before he could back away. “Then you’re going to touch me again. And again. And again. And-”

            And Derek closed the distance between them, kissing him again just to shut him up. Stiles just grinned, and kissed him back this time.

 

 


End file.
